The Government ought to be listening to the views of local politicians and people

Planning should involve local government.

7:00AM BST 09 Sep 2011

SIR – Having been a Tory councillor for the past 11 years, I have never known the party to be more determined to destroy any relationship between central and local government. The proposed planning reforms show a disregard for our local communities. What happened to devolving powers from central government?

All I have seen is erosion of powers at the local level. The Government appears to think local authorities cannot be trusted in providing for the needs of their residents. We understand people’s housing needs but will not be dictated to over where the houses will be located.

The presumption in favour of sustainability shows the Conservative Party’s lack of understanding of the rural community: many of our villages have suffered expansion over the past 30 years without adequate provision of infrastructure.

Encouraging developers to submit applications on any piece of land shows a lack of respect for local authorities. If the Government does not start listening to local politicians and residents alike, not only will it lose the respect of communities but the Conservatives stand a good chance of lasting only one term in office.

Related Articles

SIR – The Woodland Trust is wrong to suggest that the Government’s planning reforms will threaten ancient woodland (report, September 5). The Coalition is committed to safeguarding the environment and has made this clear in the draft planning framework by ensuring strong protections for ancient woodland, the Green Belt, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and other natural areas.

The draft retains the protections already in place and makes clear that planning permission should be refused for development resulting in the loss of ancient woodland and aged trees.

Our reforms put power into the hands of communities, so they decide the areas they wish to see developed and those that should be protected, in contrast to being imposed on by top-down targets. We look forward to working with the Woodland Trust and others to secure a planning system that protects the interests of today’s communities and generations to come.

Bob Neill MP (Con) London SW1

SIR – So that’s that then. The decision has already been made by the Planning Inspectorate to start following the draft guidelines (report, September 7), on the basis of “normal procedure”.

Will MPs now be made redundant?

Valerie Yeoman Birdham, West Sussex

SIR – Dr Gavin Rider (Letters, September 6) says local communities will have to say “yes” to development. At a presentation I attended recently, a company planning to develop a huge windfarm off the south coast encouraged people to vote on a web page about the proposal.

The only voting options were positive or neutral tick-boxes: not surprisingly, the developer later claimed that most locals were in favour of the development.

Tim Wells Chickerell, Dorset

SIR – In our village we had in the past a good supply of small family houses. Most of these have now been converted into four or five-bedroom properties, many of which are unoccupied, owned by families on overseas contracts or who have second homes.

Now we hear that we, as a community, must provide more two and three-bedroom homes for young families. Is it not time for some joined-up thinking from this Government? We have got to build some kind of low-cost housing, an equivalent to the old council houses, so that young people can get a foothold in the village.

But, as we have seen before, plastering houses all over the fields of England won’t solve the problem; we also need to use existing housing stock more effectively.

I am a Tory and worked hard to get the Tories elected. I sometimes wonder why.

The problem is that we are not building it, yet they are still coming.

Mike Bridgeman Devizes, Wiltshire

SIR – I support the National Trust and I respect the campaign against the planning reforms. But the trust exists to acquire and preserve places of beauty and historic interest; no other task matters.

Dr Iain Clark Winslow, Buckinghamshire

True cost of energy

SIR – Leonie Greene (Letters, September 7) writes that “renewables” will add only £19 to the average energy bill this year. But the Ofgem website states that the anticipated cost of the Renewables Obligation scheme in 2011-12 is £1.487 billion.

By my reckoning, this equates to an average cost of £57 for each of the 26 million households in Britain.

To be sure, the cost of renewables will be met by consumers, directly through our electricity bills or indirectly in the cost of the goods we purchase.

Clive Marshall Curthwaite, Cumberland

Plummeting pensions

SIR – The Office for National Statistics blames the recession for a decrease in people’s contributions to their pension funds (report, September 8). But the real reason is our lack of faith in trustees and fund managers, who continue to charge substantial fees while the values of our pension pots plummet.

Worse still, many have contributed to this poor performance by allowing the executives of the companies in which they have invested our money to pay themselves excessive bonuses.

I would rather have the money in my pocket.

Clive Pilley Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex

White Cadillac

SIR – Further to your correspondence about car colours (September 6), some years ago I bought a snow-white Cadillac Fleetwood. I asked the dealer what the trade secret was for keeping a white car looking immaculate.

He looked around as if to make sure that nobody else was listening, and then leaned very close to my ear and said: “Wash it.”

Graham Masterton Tadworth, Surrey

SIR – In the 1990s, one of the colours that Ford used for the Escort Cosworth was called “Mallard Green”.

The project engineers referred to it as “British Racing Duck”.

Jonathan Robson Milborne Port, Somerset

Abortion pressure

SIR – MPs have rejected plans to reform abortion counselling (report, September 6). After our second daughter was conceived it was feared she had a syndrome which meant she would be born handicapped.

My wife and I overcame pressure for an abortion. We were told there was no point having a test for the syndrome unless we wished to terminate the pregnancy. But we wanted to prepare ourselves.

Our daughter was born with abnormalities, but not the syndrome in question. After her birth we had to fight for life-saving surgery, as we were told she would be dead within a year and she would pull our marriage apart. Our daughter is 31 and we have been married for 37 years.

You have to be strong to resist the pressure for abortion that can come from the medical profession.

Peter Anderson Kettering, Northamptonshire

Poverty campaigning

SIR – Mandrake (September 8) mentions the work of One, the anti-poverty campaign co-founded by Bono. It is important to note that we are not a fundraising organisation for programmes in Africa.

All our resources go to advocating better policies to help fight extreme poverty, including more effective aid, increased accountability for governments and businesses operating in Africa, and fairer trade rules. Bono’s recent meeting with the Chancellor was to discuss these policies.

The Horn of Africa crisis shows why this would be the worst time for the world to turn its back on Africa. The Prime Minister and Chancellor deserve credit for standing by Britain’s promises to the world’s poorest and we urge them to maintain their vital global leadership on this issue.

Adrian Lovett Europe Director, One London W1

For crying out loud

SIR – Serving at a local library recently I was subjected to a screaming toddler, strapped into her pushchair for 20 minutes.

The title her mother eventually borrowed was Top 10 Tips for Contented Babies.

Zena Nattriss Reading, Berkshire

Atrocities in Burma are hidden from public view

SIR – Charles Gallannaugh and his wife (Letters, September 7) “did not recognise the picture portrayed” by Gordon Brown and others in their letter (September 5) about human rights abuses in Burma.

This is not surprising. As a tourist, Mr Gallannaugh would not have been allowed to visit the border territories where the atrocities mainly occur. Even the residents are prevented from travelling far by road blocks.

Beryl Lee Karenni Student Development Programme Laceby, Lincolnshire

SIR – I asked my MP to raise the matter of Burma with William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, after evidence that the Burmese army had taken advantage of distractions in Libya to attack its people. The response from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office showed low-key concern.

Meanwhile, my MP wrote: “I am sure you appreciate that influence is of necessity limited as Burma is an independent country.” This was on the day British jets bombed parts of Tripoli.